The Free Will Dream
- Thread starter FineLinen
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"For God has imprisoned everyone in disobedience so he could have mercy on everyone."
Questions=
1. What does imprisoned mean?
2. What is the scope of "everyone"?
3. How many of the imprisoned everyone can expect mercy?
Questions=
1. What does imprisoned mean?
2. What is the scope of "everyone"?
3. How many of the imprisoned everyone can expect mercy?
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"And they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will."
What is the foundation of "free will"?
What is the foundation of "free will"?
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"Free will" folly is believing that faith in the Gospel is a matter of personal choice unrelated to the work of God in the heart.
It believes that nothing is required to cause faith in the Gospel other than a person's choice to believe.
All men (& women) are born in Adam1 enslaved prisoners of sin, by no choice of their own!
Our arrogant pride nature assumes, and prefers to believe that our decisions pay a part in a salvation that begins in God & ends in God. We did not, we cannot, follow the Lord as prisoners of incarceration, His love and grace must reach for us by HIS drawing power!
"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. "
It believes that nothing is required to cause faith in the Gospel other than a person's choice to believe.
All men (& women) are born in Adam1 enslaved prisoners of sin, by no choice of their own!
Our arrogant pride nature assumes, and prefers to believe that our decisions pay a part in a salvation that begins in God & ends in God. We did not, we cannot, follow the Lord as prisoners of incarceration, His love and grace must reach for us by HIS drawing power!
"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. "
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Let's state the idea differently>>>>>
"Free will" is the God-given glory of our ability to work together with Him.
"Free will" is the God-given glory of our ability to work together with Him.
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- Jul 2, 2018
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While I agree with this in principle (more than in practice), is this a call to do something, or to do nothing?
I say "more than in practice", because I am still encouraging people to follow Christ. But maybe I am meddling in God's business? To do, or not to do, that is the question. ???
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While I peddle, I'll watch out for puddles. - lol
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Dear Damian: Not quite! There is no such animal as "free will"! Man is a will, the question = how free?
Predestination on the other hand is indeed from the perspective of "heaven looking down" by the Will of all wills.
Every incarcerated sinner released from prison transformed & changed by the Will of all wills.
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How does this work with our accountability for our own behavior?
For instance, when we are tempted to sin we make a decision whether to yield or not.
If we make the wrong decision we are accountable. Was that not a free will decision?
Or were we predestined to do the right or wrong thing? (no choice in the matter)
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Dear Saint: As a will we continually make decisions. Sin is our nature as fallen sons of Adam. All leanings, outside of Divine enablement lean towards sin. This is exactly why our God is in the process of "making righteous" the radical ALL of the equation.
His Divine Will, His thelo, shall be ultimately consummated in every last one of us! Our little wills must ultimately be lost in His.
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You can call me Steve. (Saint is not my first name - lol)
Thanks for your thoughtful reply though. I agree.
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Lets at least try to start with what we do agree on:
Is it beyond God’s ability to provide humans with some small amount autonomous free will?
Did Adam and Eve prior to sinning have some limited amount of free will?
If humans really had to have a very limited amount of truly autonomous free will to fulfill some righteous objective would God have both the power and Love to provide humans with this autonomous free will?
Is a Love for someone made as a result of some truly free will choice with likely other alternatives, greater than the instinctive love even an animal might have for a person?
A nonbelieving sinner is naturally selfishly motivated, but is there anything contrary to scripture for him to make a free will choice to chose one selfish act over another selfish act?
If man is here to bring glory to God, can man do stuff which does not bring glory to God?
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Dear Bling: This is exciting thinking about what we agree on LOL.
Prior to sin by A.& E. the Father knew exactly what they would do with their will. I dare say I understand so little of our Heavenly Lord, but it appears His mighty purpose was wrapped in His beloved Son (and still is) to express Himself in love and grace.
"Unbelieving sinners" as a result are incarcerated in the prison house of unbelief. Can he do "stuff" to bring glory to God? I think not, the only stuff worthy of we sinners is>>>
Lord be merciful to me a sinner
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The following is from a brother on another Christian Board who has an interesting scope of the subject of the O.P.
"God knows all things. But it is logically impossible to know in advance what a free will agent will choose. That cannot be known in advance because the free-will agent has not yet made his choice.
If someone knew (it doesn’t have to be God) that you were going to eat an apple tomorrow, then it would be impossible for you to refrain from eating an apple tomorrow. For if tomorrow you choose NOT to eat and apple that would indicate that that someone didn’t know after all.
By the way, when you look up the passage about God knowing the end from the beginning, it is clear that it is speaking of Him knowing the end from the beginning of his plans. In no way is the passage speaking about God knowing the end from the beginning of all events. That is but a presumption."
"God knows all things. But it is logically impossible to know in advance what a free will agent will choose. That cannot be known in advance because the free-will agent has not yet made his choice.
If someone knew (it doesn’t have to be God) that you were going to eat an apple tomorrow, then it would be impossible for you to refrain from eating an apple tomorrow. For if tomorrow you choose NOT to eat and apple that would indicate that that someone didn’t know after all.
By the way, when you look up the passage about God knowing the end from the beginning, it is clear that it is speaking of Him knowing the end from the beginning of his plans. In no way is the passage speaking about God knowing the end from the beginning of all events. That is but a presumption."
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I think this is deeper then "free will". God can never do evil/sin.. the goal so to speak "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!' To show His mercy, grace to the world/all. NO one knows how much He loves us..
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Dear Blade: "Past finding out" condenses in a nutshell the scope of the love of our God in His exceeding love for us in His beloved Son!
Exceedingly abundantly beyond all we can ask or even think!
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OK, I do not have a problem with God at the beginning of time knowing everything about Adam and Eve and everyone else, but that does not address my question: Did Adam and Eve prior to sinning have some limited amount of free will?
OK, I can be in agreement with this.
There were some other questions you did not address which I would at least like to have your opinion on:
- Is it beyond God’s ability to provide humans with some small amount autonomous free will?
- If humans really had to have a very limited amount of truly autonomous free will to fulfill some righteous objective would God have both the power and Love to provide humans with this autonomous free will?
- Is a Love for someone made as a result of some truly free will choice with likely other alternatives, greater than the instinctive love even an animal might have for a person?
- A nonbelieving sinner is naturally selfishly motivated, but is there anything contrary to scripture for him to make a free will choice to choose one selfish act over another selfish act?
This will take some deep thoughts so please think about my questions:
With our very limited scientific ability we have repeatedly shown over the last 100 years that time is not fixed, but relative and the Time Space Continuum can be warped (curved) by gravity for one thing, so what limit can we put on God’s ability to warp time?
We talk about God being outside of time and always existing which is need because if God just existed in time from an infinite amount of time past we would not exist, since an infinite amount of time has not pasted by yet.
It seems from scripture God exist everywhere at the same time, but if God is outside of time would that also mean God exist simultaneously throughout human time?
God at the end of time would know all human choices from the beginning of time as pure history and history cannot be changed it is set and even if God wanted to do something over again the history of the first occurrence would still exist even if only with God.
You can know some choices you made yesterday and even God cannot change them, but the fact they are historically set does not proof they were not free will choices, you could have made them and set them.
God at the end of time being outside of human time would be providing historically to Himself at the beginning of human time all human choices as pure set historic facts which cannot be changed, but again just because some choices are known historically does not mean they were not autonomous free will choices when they were made in man’s time.
Your author friend wrote his ideas which make some huge assumptions mainly assuming God is only moving along the human time line and so there is a future also for God but somehow God knows the future which does not exist?
God at the end of time knows historically you ate the apple on Aug. 14, 2019 so you cannot choose to do something different, but that is because you already chose and did what is in your time frame tomorrow’s choice and thus provided that history to Himself at the beginning of time, so God knows what you did on Aug. 14, 2019, which is will do for you.
I know God communicates with man in human understanding, so He can talk about the setting sun even though the sun does not move around the earth and literally set. So God would talk about the future, but that is because there is a future for humans. God is also here with us living through our time, but that is not the only place God can be found.
Your friend needs to think again about it.
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